Boeing Dreamliner Battery Fire

[dnmun]

from nytimes: 2/26

F.A.A. Is Not Ready to Approve 787 Test Flights
By CHRISTOPHER DREW
Boeing is conducting laboratory tests on its proposed fixes for the lithium-ion batteries on its new 787 jets, and federal regulators said Tuesday that they would need to see the results before deciding whether to allow flight tests.

The Federal Aviation Administration is conducting its own evaluation of the changes, which are meant to keep the batteries from catching fire or emitting smoke, as occurred on two flights in January.

Industry and federal officials said the agency had rejected a request from Boeing to set a date to begin checking the solutions on flights by Boeing’s test aircraft.

Laura J. Brown, an agency spokeswoman, said Tuesday that “reports that we are close to approving test flights are completely inaccurate.”

Boeing executives outlined the proposals to Transportation Department officials on Friday. The planes have been grounded worldwide for six weeks, and Boeing has been working hard to figure out how to keep the new lithium-ion batteries from overheating and how to vent any smoke or hazardous gases out of the plane if they do.

Boeing has delivered 50 787s so far to eight airlines, and it expects to sell thousands of the fuel-efficient jets. But a battery caught fire on one plane parked in Boston on Jan. 7, and smoke forced another 787 to make an emergency landing in Japan.

Investigators still do not know what caused the problems. So Boeing is identifying ways that the batteries could have failed.

Battery experts say the company’s plan generally seems on track. But Donald R. Sadoway, a professor of materials chemistry at M.I.T., said he thinks Boeing should add a water-cooling system or a fan to provide more assurance that the battery cells will not overheat.

 

[croustibat]

Ahh, I see what you’re saying now: The benefit of LiPo is erased by the containment of the potential dangers when compared to other sources of battery construction.

Without knowing how the 787 battery compartment is constructed, I wonder aloud if they attempt to control the thermal environment. From my understanding Tesla thermally protects their cells, yes?

~KF

Tesla does not need to bother about air pressure, temperature, humidity. Plane makers do. Also, "venting outside" means accounting for various debris, ice shards and birds that could come in... or out. If cell debris are vented outside along with fumes, and damage the rear of the plane or the relief valve, it could be as dangerous as a fire. I know that because i worked on 2 plane air system designs, sukkhoi superjet 100 and the chinese copy of the airbus 320

Venting could be a good idea, but it has too much complexity imho. an armor box around the whole battery / each cell is simpler to do and could do the trick; the aim is to avoid fire, not to avoid battery defect. APU means auxiliary power unit, if it fails the plane wont go down, but confort will be degraded.

 

[Kingfish]

NTSB to hold April forum, hearing on Boeing 787

The National Transportation and Safety Board will hold both a forum and a hearing in April to keep the aviation community and public up to speed on its investigation of Boeing 787 battery troubles.

The information derived from the events will help the agency and "the entire transportation community better understand the risks and benefits associated with lithium batteries, and illuminate how manufacturers and regulators evaluate the safety of new technology," Deborah A.P. Hersman, chairman of the NTSB, said in a statement Thursday.

Hersman's remarks came as the agency released an interim factual report on its investigation of a Jan. 7 lithium-ion battery failure on a 787 operated by Japan Airlines. On Jan. 16, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded Boeing 787s until the battery problem could be resolved. Boeing has since proposed a fix for the battery and is awaiting a response from the FAA.

The NTSB report did not pinpoint the cause of the Japan Airlines 787 battery failure. The 48-page report provides an account, down to the second, of the events of Jan. 7. It also includes findings from the examination of the battery and test results of related components as well as information on the FAA certification process of the 787 and its lithium-ion battery.

"Releasing an interim report provides a window into the significant investigative work that has been accomplished so far," Hersman said.

Bloomberg News reported, meanwhile, that Boeing's supplier of lithium-ion batteries tightened quality checks after the planemaker sought advice from other companies that use the technology, including Ford and GM.

Click on the 2nd link for more battery info.

Good dirt on the progress of things to come.
~KF

 

[dnmun]

this is the real problem now:

By Michelle Dunlop, Herald Writer
As the Boeing Co. awaits approval by federal regulators on a solution to return the 787 to commercial flight, the company quietly is checking the public's opinion of the grounded Dreamliner.
Boeing is conducting a survey about air travel in general and flying on the Dreamliner in particular, asking email subscribers of NewAirplane.com to fill out an online poll.
The company's move comes as the Federal Aviation Administration considers a Boeing proposal to resolve problems with the 787's lithium-ion batteries. FAA Administrator Michael Huerta has said he expects a staff report this week on the matter. The agency grounded the 787 on Jan. 16, following two battery failures.
Boeing's survey isn't the first of its kind.
In February, 32 percent of respondents of The Travel Insider's poll said they wouldn't fly on a 787. Local analyst Scott Hamilton also recently surveyed readers of his Leeham Co. blog. His poll shows about 46 percent of respondents say they'll wait a year or two after Boeing resolves the 787's problems to fly on one. Almost the same percentage of respondents said they're confident in Boeing's solution, though details of that are not yet public.
Analyst Richard Aboulafia, with the Teal Group, opines that Boeing's problems could be exacerbated by the lack of engineers in key management positions. Neither Boeing CEO Jim McNerney nor Ray Conner, the president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, are engineers, which means the right message may not be getting from the engineers to the public.
Aboulafia writes:
For a traveling public prepared to avoid any plane associated with fires, talk of managing heat and smoke rather than fixing the system completely was like waving a red cape in front of an economy-class bull.
Boeing can do better than this. In fact, the company probably is doing better than this right now. The company's engineers are likely working on an array of alternative plans, including a complete system redesign. My concern, however, is that they aren't messaging this at all. ...
But for Boeing to message that this fix is the company's sole proposal speaks to a culture that's more in tune with financial needs than engineering requirements, a problem that set the stage for the 787's problems in the first place. ... It also speaks to management difficulties with harmonizing regulatory and market needs with engineering requirements.

 

[Chalo]

To heck with 'em. When their "all new, clean sheet, revolutionary" new plane looks just like a two-engined version of the 367-80 that first flew in 1954, you know that the company has dry-rotted long ago. They have gone the way of all quasi-monopolistic corporations, which is to get in their own way to the point of uselessness and self-destruction. As long as executive pay keeps increasing, the company is doing what it has been carefully designed to do. But why should the rest of us care?

Does this look like the results of 60 years of ongoing development to you? Bicycles were already very mature technology in the 1950s, but even they have changed more than this.

We were supposed to have been flying atomic bubble cars to work by now, remember?

 

[dnmun]

actually the 787 is revolutionary. in case you had not noticed it is built using composite materials for a majority of the fuselage and some wing sections.

to have the batteries be the public perception of a problem is like missing the forest for the trees.

 

[Chalo]

Yes, they make it out of plastic now. Woohoo.

Is this what is supposed to come from billions spent on engineering every year, for sixty years?

Making bikes out of plastic didn't take that long, or cost nearly so much.

 

[Kingfish]

Chalo, I partly agree that we should have evolved much farther along by now. Boeing's problem is one that affects many corporations and governments, from Military to Microsoft. Checks and balances slow things down. Public image, public safety... plodding politics. And then there's Unions which are never satisfied. It's a culture that does not move terribly fast - except in times of War.

Related to airplane development... I read this a couple of days ago:

Boeing customer says 787 woes have slowed 777X work

Boeing Co. 777 customer Etihad Airways PJSC said it doesn't expect sales of an upgraded version of the model to begin this year as planned, and the planemaker's chief said 787 battery woes have slowed development work.

Etihad Chief Executive Officer James Hogan also wouldn't say whether he still expects the 777X, as the new variant is called, to enter service at the end of the decade, as Chicago- based Boeing has been promising.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes President Ray Conner "is meeting with us next week in Abu Dhabi, and as part of that meeting, we'll look at what our future requirements are," Hogan said yesterday in an interview in New York. "We're believers in the aircraft and the product. We've had presentations in Seattle on next-generation aircraft and continue to evaluate the aircraft accordingly."

The 787 Dreamliner's battery faults -- still under investigation after the model has been grounded for seven weeks -- are slowing work on the planned 787-10, a stretched version of that plane, Conner said earlier yesterday. There's "hopefully enough interest to be able to bring that forward soon" for board approval to commit to producing it, Conner said at a JPMorgan Chase & Co. conference in New York.

"We have been working really hard on the business case, working with our customers," Conner said of the 777X. "With both of those, though, I think we're in relatively good shape once we get through the battery issue."

Revised schedule

Conner's predecessor, Jim Albaugh, who unexpectedly retired last year, had said he expected board approval to begin offering both planes by the end of 2012. Conner revised that prediction when he took over in June, saying he still wanted to confer with customers before taking any new designs to the board.

Airbus SAS's rival A350, scheduled to enter service in 2014, is "a concern," though Boeing still expects to sell as many 777s this year as it delivers, Conner said yesterday. The company's delivery forecast is for about 100 777s this year.

"There hasn't been any change, we're still trying to hit the same internal milestones," said Karen Crabtree, a Boeing spokeswoman. "We continue to work with customers to understand the requirements to define the future 777."

Boeing generally first seeks the board's authority to offer a new model and then, once it has customers lined up, the authority to launch, which is when it commits to producing the plane. Directors gave authority to offer the 787-10 in November.

The third customer meeting for potential 777X buyers, following gatherings in June and October, is scheduled for April in Seattle, home to Boeing's commercial jet headquarters.

The 787 has been grounded by regulators since Jan. 16, after battery faults led to a fire on one plane and an emergency landing by another. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is considering a plan that Boeing proposed Feb. 22 to alter the battery's cell spacing and case to better protect the jet in the future.

There's a lot of good stuff on the drawing boards, but this battery thing is going to gut Boeing's profits for a year.
~KF

 

[dnmun]

if 40% of the paying passengers will not book on it then the company is going to chapter 11.

 

[Chalo]

Chalo, I partly agree that we should have evolved much farther along by now. Boeing's problem is one that affects many corporations and governments, from Military to Microsoft. Checks and balances slow things down. Public image, public safety... plodding politics. And then there's Unions which are never satisfied. It's a culture that does not move terribly fast - except in times of War.

Corporations and governments rely heavily on computers and communications, too.

Imagine if those industries had advanced the same amount as passenger aircraft have developed since the 1950s.

"Hello operator? Could you please connect me to the tape punch technician on duty? I have to multiply a couple of five-digit numbers."

 

[Kingfish]

Without military requests, civilian aircraft wouldn't be where they are today. Without spaceflight, we couldn't have advanced computer technologies or composites or microwave ovens or fiber optics or Internet.

- - -

Actually, we need to be optimistic that Boeing can lash the battery makers (and other partners) into producing exceedingly better components. The FAA is under extreme pressure from industry to get these planes back in the air. The culture of self-inspection is flawed; they know it. So expect some changes, but all the players – Boeing & suppliers, customers – meaning airlines, and the Governments all have a stake (jobs & profit) in getting this one fixed in short order.

There’s never been a more-composite plane like this before, not even a military one on the scale and distribution as the 787. It’s no small feat. EADS can’t do it… yet. The applications, the benefits though are huge because of the weight and fuel and critical material savings. It looks like the same plane from 60 years ago, but when think how much lighter and faster and farther and more comfortable experience… well, then there is no comparison, not really, not even in the shape other than wings and a tail.

We have to have hope and faith. Support innovation. We’re scrappy dogs; we can take a kickin’ or we wouldn’t be here doing this.
American and Washingtonian. KF

 

[fizzit]

Chalo,
Please show us your design for a passenger aircraft that is more efficient, safe, and reliable than the jetliners of today, and is made with currently existing materials and technology. They don't just say "oh, we'll make this plane look like the last one cuz we don't feel like redesigning it!"
That specific shape has been carefully refined through thousands of computer simulations to provide the least drag, highest lift, and highest strength that is possible. Other planes, such as military planes, are different because they have different design goals. Not because the engineers were smarter or better educated.

 

[sendler2112]

How long does it take to figure out the BMS is the problem?

 

[Punx0r]

I think it's unfair and unrealistic to compare progress (fashion?) in the bicycle industry to the commercial airline industry. If airframes snapped in half like carbon-fibre cycle frames do...

In terms of shear performance you could argue the aircraft industry hasn't progressed since Concorde, but in terms of size, ticket price, and efficiency there has been significant progress. It is all market-driven.

 

[drewjet]

The major changes are a lot bigger than what it is made of. Virtually all systems now run on electric instead of hydraulics and pneumatics. Updated cockpit and instrumentation, etc etc.

So in other words the whole outside and the whole inside is different, except that the basic outward appearce is similar.

Bicycles have looked from the outside about the same for th last 100 years, but functionality and materiels have changed drastically. I guess the 787 is a bicycle.

 

[bigmoose]

If you compare gallons/seat mile, cost/mile (inflation adjusted and removing fuel) and Noise Foot print, the two Boeing aircraft are as different as night and day!


707 Noise Level EPNdB 105
727 Noise Level EPNdB 100
737 Noise Level EPNdB 86
757 Noise Level EPNdB 80

Look at those take off EPNdB numbers!!! Thats 25 freaking dB lower!

 

[Chalo]

It looks like the same plane from 60 years ago, but when think how much lighter and faster and farther and more comfortable experience… well, then there is no comparison, not really, not even in the shape other than wings and a tail.

Depends on what you mean by "no comparison".

Data for the Boeing 367-80 prototype, first flown 1954:
Cruising Speed: 550 mph
Range: 3,530 mi
Service ceiling: 43,000 ft

Data for the Boeing 707-320B, first commercial service 1962:
Cruising Speed: 607 mph
Range: 6,160 miles
Service ceiling: 36,000 feet

Data for the 787-8 Dreamliner, first commercial service 2011:
Cruising speed: 567 mph
Range: 8,800–9,440 mi
Service ceiling: 43,000 ft

I'm seeing that it took them 50 years to increase range by 50% (thanks mostly to engine manufacturers, not Boeing), decrease speed a little, and make the thing out of plastic (as if that's a good thing in its own right).

I have worked with some former Boeing employees at an aerospace company in Seattle. If I had not done so, I might never have bothered to notice that Boeing product development has not delivered much technological return on investment for a few decades.

 

[Chalo]

Chalo,
Please show us your design for a passenger aircraft that is more efficient, safe, and reliable than the jetliners of today, and is made with currently existing materials and technology. They don't just say "oh, we'll make this plane look like the last one cuz we don't feel like redesigning it!"
That specific shape has been carefully refined through thousands of computer simulations to provide the least drag, highest lift, and highest strength that is possible. Other planes, such as military planes, are different because they have different design goals. Not because the engineers were smarter or better educated.

So you're suggesting they magically hit on the best possible formula on their very first attempt at a jetliner back in 1952? Um, don't think so. Maybe, but I think other explanations (like corporate myopia) are more plausible.

Boeing itself designed the SST, the Sonic Cruiser, the wing-in-ground effect Pelican, and blended wing-body aircraft, but couldn't get out of their own way enough to build any of them. It's definitely not the same sort of technologically bold outfit anymore that built the 307, 367-80, or even the 747 on their own speculation because they knew the world would follow.

 

[Sancho's Horse]

I may have missed a link or two, but here is the NTSB factual report released today:



Good overview. There are several pretty damning facts in the report.

NTSB also has a twitter feed associated with this if you are so inclined.

 

[Sancho's Horse]

I like this quote from Jim Lovell from "In the Shadow of the Moon,"

Jim Lovell: We changed our plans on Apollo 8. They changed the mission from an Earth orbital type to a flight to the Moon. And it was a bold move. It had some risky aspects to it. But it was a time when we made bold moves.

 

[wesnewell]

Let's see if I have this right. 65ah 5C 8s1p lico, BMU with 580A max discharge limit and 2.5V cell level cutoff. Yeah, what could go wrong.

 

[dnmun]

i also read that some of the people who consulted with boeing from ford and GM asked why yuasa did not have a higher failure history in their reports on these new cells. some felt that the failure rate shoulda been similar to what they ahd seen developing other batteries. implication being that the documentation of the development may be suspect at yuasa.

it is pretty clear that #6 shorted and led to thermal runaway int he adjacent cells in boston. if this is inherent in the design, this shoulda shown up in the lifetime tests that yuasa did.

securaplane did make the charger after all. so that stuff about the fired guy making a formal complaint about the failure of the charger may reappear. maybe it really was not his fault he burned down the building.

from the nytimes:

March 6, 2013
Boeing Plan to Test Fixes on 787 Nears Approval
By CHRISTOPHER DREW
The Federal Aviation Administration is close to approving tests of Boeing’s approach to fixing the batteries on its 787 jets, and the tests could begin next week, federal and industry officials said Wednesday.

The F.A.A. could still demand changes in Boeing’s proposed new battery design if problems develop in the laboratory and flight tests, which will take several weeks. But the decision to start the tests will be a major step in Boeing’s efforts to get the innovative jets, which have been grounded since mid-January, back in the air.

The federal approvals are expected late this week or early next week, even though some battery specialists remain concerned that investigators have not found the precise cause of two incidents in which the jetliner’s new lithium-ion batteries emitted smoke or fire.

The National Transportation Safety Board has found that a short-circuit in one cell caused a battery in a jet parked at Logan Airport in Boston to overheat and burst into flame on Jan. 7. The board plans to release a preliminary report on that incident on Thursday.

But investigators in Japan have suggested that something else may have caused the battery on an All Nippon Airways 787 to emit smoke on a flight on Jan. 16. They said the battery may have been hit by a surge of electrical current from another part of the plane.

Donald R. Sadoway, a professor of materials chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the Japanese data suggested that temperatures might have shot much higher in that battery than in the one on the plane in Boston. If that is true, he said, Boeing and the F.A.A. might need to add more steps to the safety plan to guard against such possibilities.

“I think the F.A.A. needs to have assurance that the proposed changes address the causes of the two incidents,” Professor Sadoway said. “That means that we need to have certainty as to what caused those incidents.”

Otherwise, he said, “we can make changes that sound like good changes, but if they fall short of addressing what caused those two incidents, they would be inadequate.”

The F.A.A.’s Seattle office on Wednesday was completing its recommendation to approve Boeing’s plan for the tests, which are needed to certify that its proposed fixes would work, federal officials said. The plan is still subject to approval by Michael P. Huerta, the head of the F.A.A., and Ray LaHood, the transportation secretary, who will be briefed on it over the next several days.

Mr. LaHood said in January that the planes “won’t fly until we’re 1,000 percent sure they are safe to fly.” Department officials said Mr. LaHood and Mr. Huerta had been kept informed of the details of the proposal as it was created, and they are expected to sign off on it.

Boeing officials said they think they have identified the most likely ways in which the batteries could fail. They contend that the changes would minimize the odds of future incidents and protect the plane and its passengers if a problem does arise.

Under the plan, Boeing proposed adding insulation among the eight cells in the battery to minimize the risk of a short-circuit cascading through most or all of them. The company also proposed adding systems to monitor the temperature and activity in each cell. It would enclose the batteries in sturdier steel boxes to contain any fire, and it would create tubes to vent hazardous gases outside the plane.

Aviation analysts said the plan would probably protect against the main problem that the safety board has identified, a short-circuit in one of the cells that can trigger a chemical reaction that leads the battery to overheat.

But the approval of the changes is also a highly political process, and Mr. Huerta and Mr. LaHood are trying to balance safety concerns with the interest at Boeing and in the airline industry to get the planes flying again.

Perceptions of the traveling public also loom large as Boeing tries to restore confidence in the 787s, known as the Dreamliners for their use of new technologies that reduce fuel costs by 20 percent.

To that end, Boeing has referred to its proposal as a permanent fix for the problems. But Hans J. Weber, the president of Tecop International, an aviation consulting firm, said: “You cannot call it a permanent fix until after you really understand what happened. So I’m distressed, quite frankly, that it provides a signal that they might not be working as diligently to still find out what caused the problems.”

Marc R. Birtel, a Boeing spokesman, said it called the plan a permanent fix because it “believes it is the right one.” But, he said, “if new information arises, we won’t hesitate to improve the safety and reliability of our products.”

Boeing has delivered 50 787s to eight airlines, and officials said it could install new batteries in them quickly once a new design was approved. The company has much at stake with the plane, which is the first commercial jet to be built mostly out of lightweight composite materials. Boeing has orders for 800 more of the planes.

The proposed changes are also, in effect, an acknowledgment by Boeing that its original plan for testing the batteries in 2007 was inadequate.

Deborah A. P. Hersman, the chairwoman of the safety board, said last month that Boeing’s original tests showed no indication the batteries could erupt in flame and concluded that they were likely to emit smoke less than once in every 10 million flight hours.

Once the planes were placed in service, though, the batteries overheated and emitted smoke twice, and caused one fire, after about 50,000 hours of commercial flights.

Raymond L. Conner, the president of Boeing’s commercial airplane division, said this week that industry and academic researchers had learned much since then about the volatile batteries. Other company officials said Boeing would also incorporate what it learned from the two recent incidents into its new tests.

The laboratory work will include tests that set off fires in the batteries to see how the new containment and venting systems work, while the flight tests will check to make sure that the plane’s vibrations do not bring the cells too close together.

Professor Sadoway, of M.I.T., said the temperatures in the battery on the plane in Japan shot high enough to melt aluminum connectors and ground wires, which could support the idea that an electrical surge had come from outside the battery.

He said Boeing might need to add a circuit-breaker outside the battery to prevent such surges or take a deeper look at how the plane’s novel electrical system is working.

 

[spinningmagnets]

Chalo, I am a fan of the bottom 3 pics out of the 4 you posted.

dnmun:

if 40% of the paying passengers will not book on it then the company is going to chapter 11.

You will never see this under any administration. When I worked at McDonnel Douglas, Lockheed was flying L-1011's and Douglas was still making DC-10's/MD-11's (along with the military fueling variant). If Boeing begins consistently losing money, it will be consistently bailed out because they are now "too big to fail".

 

[dnmun]

they have only delivered 50 planes and if the FAA drags out a complete review of the manufacturing and certification then it could take a year. there is no clear idea of why the cells are shorting or why the ANA 787 was put on the ground in japan.

boeing has bet the company on this one project. just like they did with the 747 but politics will be a big part of this and if it continues making headlines people will not fly the plane. it will not be delivered to customers and the company will go into chapter 11.

someone else can buy the parts of boeing that they want, but i doubt if guvment can help since there are not gonna be more big budget jet fighter projects anymore. if the republicans are gonna cut the medicare and social security budgets, there is no way the military will continue to get money like they have in the past.

it does look like the battery is unable to prevent overcharging and there may be something happening in the 'novel' wiring system used in the plane that ends up creating a bigger problem as it unfolds.

these fires should not be happening and the coincidence of it being two japanese national carriers, and the battery had been disconnected from and then reconnected to the system, and it happened about 20 minutes after the APU powered up may be as important as the lack of information about how the cell shorted out.

 

[Kingfish]

It looks like the same plane from 60 years ago, but when think how much lighter and faster and farther and more comfortable experience… well, then there is no comparison, not really, not even in the shape other than wings and a tail.

Depends on what you mean by "no comparison".

Data for the Boeing 367-80 prototype, first flown 1954:
Cruising Speed: 550 mph
Range: 3,530 mi
Service ceiling: 43,000 ft

Data for the Boeing 707-320B, first commercial service 1962:
Cruising Speed: 607 mph
Range: 6,160 miles
Service ceiling: 36,000 feet

Data for the 787-8 Dreamliner, first commercial service 2011:
Cruising speed: 567 mph
Range: 8,800–9,440 mi
Service ceiling: 43,000 ft

I'm seeing that it took them 50 years to increase range by 50% (thanks mostly to engine manufacturers, not Boeing), decrease speed a little, and make the thing out of plastic (as if that's a good thing in its own right).

I have worked with some former Boeing employees at an aerospace company in Seattle. If I had not done so, I might never have bothered to notice that Boeing product development has not delivered much technological return on investment for a few decades.

Great that you list the specs and provide the source; I shall use the same.

• 367-80 was a prototype and carried no passengers*. Loaded weight: 190,000 lb. Range 3,530 mi. Thrust: 44.5 kN x 4 = 178 kN. *Normally I'd throw this out of the comparison because it's a one- (or two-) off production; it's not fair to the Prototype being that it is a proof-of-concept.
• 707-320B. Loaded weight: 333,600 lb. Fuel capacity: Not listed. The range* is 5,750 nmi at ZERO payload, otherwise it’s 3,735 nmi. Max passengers: 219. Thrust (using the largest engine, not sure of the economy) 84.4 kN x 4 = 337.6 kN. Fuel capacity: 23,820 US gal. *I could not find the quoted 6,160 mile range anywhere in the document.
• 787-8. Maximum Loaded Weight: 502,500 lb. Fuel capacity: 33,528 US gal. Range fully loaded 7,650–8,200 nmi depending on package. Max passengers: 264. Thrust: 280 kN x 2 = 540 kN.

In 60 years we’ve generally improved the performance of these jet aircraft in terms of maximum takeoff weight, thrust produced by engines, and distance by airframe design and optimized control surfaces not by 50%, but by 250%, whilst the fuel economy between the 707 and 787 in terms of gals/mi has increased 157%. In addition, Boeing (& partners) have vastly improved safety, reduced the flight crew by 1 flight engineer + Maintenance cost$, provide pilots with better all-weather navigation and fly-by-wire (thanks to the military), plus realtime tracking, increased passenger comfort with less fatigue by providing higher cabin pressure, WiFi, and the list goes on… but you can read that for yourself. Your Boeing pals will tell you; it’s a great leap forward.

As much as I’d like to see big improvements in airplanes, they are a giant investment to produce one new class every few years. It takes time and energy, political will and marketing to create commercial aircraft. The turnover of new design doesn’t occur nearly at the same rate as a car or bicycle or computer. It takes production of hundreds to get payback on the research of investment. This is called Economics 101. Obviously these manufacturers are making money and getting a return on investment or they wouldn't do it.

BTW – there is one other interesting factoid I’d like to share and that is the estimated unit cost of each plane: We don’t have the figure for the 367 because it never went into production. However the 707 cost roughly US$36.5 million (2012 dollars) each, whereas the 787 is expected to cost 787-8: US$206.8 million which is a little less than the F-35B Lightning II, the most expensive fighter aircraft made. Gosh that's a lot of money per unit, and we need to sell a lot of them before we can afford to invest in the next design... like the 777X.

In comparison to say Moore's law (the observation that over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years) building improvements into aircraft is a vastly slower process. But then building bikes and computer chips requires far less people, smaller budgets, and has less government oversight. Plus, how many people have died due to a broken spoke or a fail transistor? Batteries? Let’s not go there… oh wait, that is part of the OP, and an integrated component affecting a ginormous assembly affecting millions of dollars of revenue daily.

For the price of a modern plane I’d like to think that we’re investing in safe economic travel with all conveniences of modern man to cocoon ourselves, and yet be able to fly out of anything short of a Class-4 Hurricane. I know that part has improved in 60 years. :wink:

I’ll tell you some really good reading is to go through all of the X-Planes. That’s an eye-opening experience on the dithers of military minds and black budgets. Think how many people were involved in each design, and how many pilots died testing them. People dying kinda slows development and gets the Government involved: A good engineer wants to be sure that doesn’t happen at all if possible. :|

Optimistically, KF